Tuesday, December 15, 2009

The reason power does not need to actually kill North American radical agitators is twofold.

First, the agitators themselves have been trained by the system’s brutality: Force will be met with disproportionate and lethal counter force. Ask the summarily executed Black Panther leaders or aboriginal warriors who dare to practice road blocks and land protection.

Second, agitation itself no longer resonates with the victims of the system’s oppression (i.e., with any of us) because the manufactured mental environment that manages collective consciousness and self-image is so completely effective.

The population and mainstream activists have been zombified and channelled towards irrelevant pursuits. Masses, encouraged by corporate media, are asking governments to save us from CO2. Or improve the laws to protect whistleblowers. Or provide Medicare. Or protect us from the next flue epidemic. Or give us a fair competitive environment. Or protect us from foreign economic or terrorist enemies. Or find the cure to cancer (why not death?) And so on.

The problems that attack body and soul are deflected, channelled, and re-cast, or substitute problems are simply fabricated; and we are encouraged to focus on the thus defined “attainable goals,” and we are rewarded for doing so by an also fabricated sense of “community.”

Every class is disconnected from its own oppression and cannot see where it has power and where it can act directly.

Instead, we accommodate ourselves to “the hand that feeds us.”

Instead, we are diverted towards windmills (literally), atmospheric chemistry, the imperceptible effects of environmental toxins (except if you live from poisoned land in which case the problem is your alcoholism), impending epidemics, impending terrorist attacks, impending economic collapse, the crushing public debt, and so on.

The radical agitator has no hold. Nothing she can say, if it does not follow the mainstream, can perturb the victim away from his false perception. There are only the right and left shades of delusion. Nothing else exists. Which side are you on? The anarchist has no moves.

Maybe an example is in order.

Whose problem is an overly large public debt? Simply zero the debt. Or if the lender is the public purse then zero the interest on the public part of the debt. If the result is that private banks will refuse to lend more then the result is that private banks will have lost their instrument of extortion. The state can print its own public money and lend it where needed on a basis of trust. The money will make itself from the labour of the borrower. Money as private debt in a fractional reserve private-bank-run system is the single greatest extortion game on the planet. Kill the banks. Take back and create human-need-based zero-profit public banking. Simple rules suffice: Can’t fund takeovers; can’t fund war; can’t fund non-democratic power grabs. The system can’t push out the individual. Pure and simple.

What does this mean in practice? Don’t pay back your loans and don’t let them repo. Cheer on those who have the guts and be there to protect them. Don’t pay your rent and don’t let them turf you. Don’t take any “money rules” bullshit. You work to live. You don’t live to be enslaved by some illegitimate debt or illegitimate ownership. You own the space that you live in. You own the place where you work. We all do. You are nobody’s slave.

The latter radical idea (especially regarding implementation) mostly has no chance. The reader’s allergic reaction to it proves my point.

Even most who agree with the economic analysis will vehemently insist on impossible implementation models: They will recommend either lobbying government to change monetary policy or escape into a fairytale alternative community of alternative currency, like one would escape into a hobby or volunteer work. Those who understand by necessity will steal from the system and use the black market – sane and healthy modes of self-defence.

There are as many examples as there are systems and circumstances of exploitation.

The answer is always to fight back directly where one is personally exploited and oppressed – and that is the most radical idea in the First World middle class, which is why it is never heard and cannot be heard.

When there is a chance it can be heard there is only one response: Kill the messenger.

Monday, December 7, 2009

"I would love to say that this was some great piece of journalistic effort, but the evidence was sitting right out in the open for anyone to see, the fact that I'm the one to put it out there has less to do with any skills or effort of mine, and more to do with exactly how detached most journalists are from the people and issues that they cover. Hardly anyone writing about Honduras came here last week with intentions to do anything more than just cover another election and report the 'official' data, candidate statements, and tidbits from the international diplomacy circus. The despicable coverage of the situation in Honduras from all the mainstream sources stands as a testament to their disillusionment from reality, and another reason why I get giddy with excitement every time I see another one of them near the cliff of impending bankruptcy."

Sunday, November 8, 2009

This talk "Breaking the Rules" by Professor David F. Noble was presented at the unSchooling Oppression conference, Ottawa, Canada, November 5, 2007.

Inspiring and entertaining... Put your headphones on and enjoy this vintage and personal David Noble material!

When David Noble was fired from M.I.T. Noam Chomsky explained that "he was too radical for M.I.T." David Noble is arguably the most important historian of science and technology of the 20th century. When he contributed a talk about the corporatization of campuses at the University of Ottawa in 2004, with co-speakers Ralph Nader and Leonard Minsky, several executive officers of the university declared that "he is not an academic".

After a brief statement in French by student and organizer Philippe Marchand, Professor Denis Rancourt presents the speaker (in English).

The Q&A/discussion following the talk is difficult to hear because there was no mic in the audience.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Art and creativity are said to be needed for the human spirit and for human development. These phrases are used by administrations to justify art classes in schools and government-funded art galleries. Beyond the cooptation by society’s management and control apparatuses, what do these phrases mean?

Creativity has meaning only as part of liberation. The first creative acts of walking and language equip us to be active and independent agents in the world. Every effort we make to develop new skills and new messages to be communicated is meant to empower us as agents of influence and change.

Our efforts to have influence in our family, community, peer group, and society, and to have our place, a place of meaningful contribution, and our say, a say that carries, are part of praxis – a cycle of action, reaction, reflection, integration, and more action. Creativity (invention) is involved in action and in reflection and integration. We invent scenarios and imagine the backlash or the rewards; we invent explanations for the unpredicted reactions; we construct an evolving image of our self, including of our place in the world, and we continuously integrate each discovery into this self, and reorganize and redefine as needed.

Creativity is life. Creativity at work is an effort to contribute and to have our personal contributions recognized. It is about influence and being appreciated. Creativity is an experiment in influence and a search for better.

A workplace of obedience to a hierarchy where opinions and ideas are not received but instead instructions are delivered and executed and where it’s all about reading the boss’ mind is a place of death. It is a place where employees are oppressed and transformed into soulless slaves.

Worst is a place of work where you are expected to be “creative” in implementing the imagery from above and where you are expected to celebrate this made-to-measure “creativity” of “advancement” and “success.” This workplace robs you of both your creativity and your outrage at being robed, thereby imbedding you into your own death while plasticizing a smile on your face. How does one escape such a trap?

How does one find one’s self, one’s place? How does one lose a plastic smile? How does one connect with life? One must discover the “authentic rebellion” described by Paulo Freire; rebellion that sparks action and initiates praxis. This is the authentic rebellion at the heart of all social justice movements, at the heart of every liberation. It is the essential ingredient that has been whitewashed out of us by the hierarchical structures that make obedient and plastic-smile students and employees.

* * *

Every instinct and life impulse can be perverted and creativity is no exception. The elite managers of the machine crush us at work and may offer outlets for our impulses and our drives to be: Be creative on your own time. Experience creativity in front of a movie or computer screen. Role play. Fight on the outside. Or simply dull it all away with suspension or canned delirium.

For the privileged: Come to understand that creativity is itself not about personal fulfilment but instead is an amusement, a diversion away from personal agency. Appreciate the arts for the purely aesthetic, purely as vehicles for emotional experiences outside of actual life struggles. Use creativity itself as suspension and seclusion from the world of praxis and risk. Denigrate creativity that is “political.” Keep it pure. Keep it privileged. Keep it about “feelings”; feelings which are stimulated and guided by music, art…

And add the layer that would have us find good via such unadulterated purity. Surely if we all practiced a pure creativity for pleasure all problems would dissolve. If we only loved our neighbours and our bosses oppressive hierarchies would melt away and all people would grow under the bright glow of the arts and heartfelt expressions of love – as has never been witnessed anywhere on the planet in history.

* * *

I prefer the real thing: Creativity in praxis, nucleated by authentic rebellion, and inscribed in a process of liberation. Life is art. Art is death.

Saturday, October 24, 2009

According to THIS ESSAY by leading US left intellectual and historian Michael Parenti, the West has made the Dalai Lama as both the figurehead of the “romanticized Shangri La” myth of pre-communist-invasion Tibet and a popular legitimizing agent of First World colonialism.

According to Parenti’s analysis old Tibet “was a retrograde repressive theocracy of extreme privilege and poverty” with a feudal economy based on legalized slavery and enforced serfdom.

Parenti also describes documents showing the CIA’s direct support for the Dalai Lama and points out the Dalai Lama’s stated pro-colonization positions on such topics as the wealth-poverty divide, the illegal Iraq war, the US intervention in Yugoslavia, and the invasion of Afghanistan.

It turns out that on questions of specific US military interventions the Dalai Lama is no pacifist. This in no way diminishes his leadership status among his “principled pacifist” followers in the West. The CIA expects good behaviour from the Dalai Lama and First World “pacifists” need their guilt-alleviation fix. The two go hand in hand.

It is clear that the Dalai Lama’s pacifism, the pacifism of his Western followers, is a different species of pacifism than the pacifism of Mahatma Ghandi – see THIS ESSAY.

We end with these spirited words by author and activist Derek Jensen about the absurdity of the pacifist ideology of First World devotees:

Saturday, October 17, 2009

This blog features several essays that attempt to explain the destructive nature of the “positive” and “progressive” and “educational” movements which are populated by the majority of First World “activists” and “aware” citizens:

These essays attempt to discover the mechanisms by which First World “responsible” lifestyle choices, consumer choices, educational efforts, dialogue initiatives, etc., are counter to authentic anti-oppression efforts.

But a poem can be worth a thousand essays…:

The Ocean of Wisdom *Ignore the checkpoints and the chainsSail the rivers of tearsPraise a dream that has given birthto a million nightmaresWe resist from our slumsYou resist from the podiumBeloved of Hollywood,Ocean of Wisdom:Can liberated celebritiesbring freedom to a people?David you embrace or MaoThe aboriginals were subjugatedIn Hebrew or in MandarinThe land was appropriatedThey’ll hide the sun under your crimson robeDrown the truth in your words of hopeGo!Leave my aching land alone!To Lhasa,I support your right of return

--Ehab LotayefMontreal, January 23, 2006

* Welcoming the Dalai Lama to the Holy Land. The Dalai Lama is planned to visit Israel in the middle of February to participate in the launch of ceremonies marking 100 years since David Ben Gurion immigrated to Israel.** We thank poet and activist Ehab Lotayef for allowing the use of his poem.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

In the work of improving the world what could be wrong with organizing, coalition building, education, community building, and other networking and social strengthening activities?

I argue that as they are practiced in middleclass First World progressive activist and political circles these activities do more harm than good in terms of creating justice, no matter the extent to which the groups are gender and race unbiased and no matter the extent to which the decision-making is horizontal and consensus-based.

If the activism – the action to improve society by reducing injustice – is the actual organizing, coalition building, education, community building, etc., itself, then it cannot be effective and it cannot be sustainable. If we add components of resistance such as letters to politicians, petitions, demonstrations, civil disobedience, and direct actions aimed at harming oppressive power structures in fighting for justice for any chosen cause, then it remains ineffective and unsustainable.

All of these forms of activism are deficient in the main ingredient: The ingredient with which we have lost touch; the ingredient that has been made invisible by the energetically managed and fabricated mental and physical environment of the modern First World middleclass.

The same artificial environment that separates us from ourselves in order that we function as expected in the mainstream, or that causes us to hide in secluded outposts or oases, also separates us from the main ingredient that would make our activism potent.

The missing element is the individual fighting her own oppression. The missing ingredient is the fighting spirit of the individual in authentic rebellion against her own oppression, in its deepest and most insidious forms.

All activism must be rooted in individuals who fight their own oppressions – who fight by kicking and pushing, knowing there will be a backlash. Every spontaneous act of self-defence is the start of a cycle of action, reaction, reflection, learning, outreach, more-action – a cycle of praxis – and each such cycle and the cycles within cycles are the steps to liberation.

Solidarity has no meaning outside of fighting a common oppressor at comparable levels of risk. Ineffectively agreeing to be of the opinion that such or such a cause is worthy of “support” is not solidarity. The only place of risk is in fighting one’s oppressor. Risk, like change, lives at home – not in the self but at home.

My oppressor is my boss at work, my teacher at school, the system that keeps me obedient and politically powerless. Since I cannot exert the free influence on my environment, on my community, that my nature craves, I am oppressed.

If you, like most slaves, do not see your oppression or refuse to legitimize it enough to fight it, then you are of use only to the slave master, the same master that runs the financial and corporate global exploitation and enforcement machine.

Citizens that liberate themselves are not easily manipulated and naturally practice their influence rather than allow themselves to be managed. These are the people that help make the world sane.

So many fallacies have been pushed into our heads in order to displace this basic truth; that against a hierarchical structure of dominance there is no gain without a fight – the fight against the structure at one’s point of attachment to it.

For example, we have the fallacy of the “critical mass”, as a model mechanism for social change. Let us examine this. The critical mass is a concept from nuclear physics. It is the limit mass of a radioactive isotope beyond which there will be a spontaneous nuclear chain reaction, a nuclear explosion. The well-meaning progressive activist postulates that with a sufficient mass of opinion on a given issue there will be a spontaneous change in government policy or law regarding the issue. One problem is that opinion is not action. One needs the right isotope before one can speak of a critical mass. The right isotope is one that is radioactive, that is throwing punches and thereby stirring others to throw punches. Without the right element, it’s just a mass. Another problem is that power does not care about public opinion, except when that opinion reflects a potential for rebellion.

This leads to a second example: The fallacy that big demonstrations cause change. In periods of change (workers rights, civil rights) there were both demonstrations and change but this does not imply that demonstrations cause change. These periods of change were characterized by oppressed people demonstrating that they were prepared to fight their oppression. The demonstrations were demonstrations of resolve and determination and daring and were accompanied by radical wings that were not insignificant. Modern organizers that just want the numbers out to show that they have voter leverage and that measure success in numbers of weekend protesters out in “solidarity” with some “cause” totally miss the point.

The First World middleclass individual is on Ritalin or some equivalent and is an accepting slave or an alternative lifestyle seeker. That is no basis for people power.

The job of the activist, at this low point in the struggle for the First World, is to be an authentic rebel, to fight the bastards from where you are at, at the point of your strongest connection to the economy, at the place where you have the most power – at work, at school.

Feel the backlash; then you will have something to organize about! Others will join you. Many will attempt to silence and normalize you. You can’t know who your friends are until you show yourself. You can’t know what power is like until it has acted against you. You can’t know freedom without liberation. You can’t be in solidarity without crossing that line.

Next, let us re-examine the organizing, coalition building, education … of the title. If we accept my proposal of a missing essential ingredient, then these activities are not even components of an effective activism because there is no activism without the missing essential ingredient. These activities are not in themselves activism (i.e., a fight for justice).

Worse, when actuated in the absence of the missing essential ingredient these activities mask that there is a missing ingredient and habituate the actor to acting outside of activism. These activities practiced without the essence provided by the missing ingredient re-enforce the false notion that they are activism in themselves; that they serve to help create more justice. They re-enforce zero-risk and low-risk self-worth-seeking and survivor-guilt-alleviation movements that serve only to accommodate one to one’s slavery, in the company of other well-adjusted slaves. Accommodating to a power structure of exploitation is not a sustainable activity, let alone sustainable activism. We need to be against the structure; we wish to flatten it, not climb it.

In addition, the practitioners of the organize-educate masquerade falsely identify individual or group expressions of authentic rebellion as “counter-productive”, “negative”, “miss-guided”, etc., and often go so far as to accuse the rebellious elements of sabotage with accusations such as “you will get them very angry and they will shut us down”, “you will give us bad media coverage”, “you will turn away potential supporters”, “you unnecessarily put us all at risk”, etc.

The practitioners of the masquerade correctly view the rebellious elements as threats against the masquerade. It is a fatal threat to one’s self-image to have to consider that one’s adopted mission is a lie, a waste, and part of the system’s resistance to change towards justice; that one’s community for good is based on self-preservation within the power structure not a fight against the power structure.

If you are not fighting the power structure and its keepers then you are not in solidarity with all those who are oppressed, displaced, starved, and murdered by the power structure. Expressing an opinion via petition or demonstration does not cut it on its own in circumstances where this expression is not an element of a real fight with significant likely consequences for both change and backlash.

Specialized First World organizers, coalition builders, and educators, like all such specialized components of First World civil society, can only be of use in the efforts towards justice to the extent that they (1) engage in fighting their own oppression in their own places of work and life; (2) recognize, support, and join the essential element, the rebel fighter fighting her own oppression in her family and community, at work, at school, and in societal organizations; and (3) are vehement in not tolerating the oppression of and attacks against authentic rebels fighting their own oppression.

The indoctrination of actors is so deep. How many times have we heard an authentic rebel being denigrated with “He is just fighting his own personal battle – He is not objectively fighting for the cause we have adopted – He does this for his own personal gain”? On the contrary, the rare fighting individuals being denigrated in this way are onto something: Liberation.

To sever the personal involvement of fighting one’s own oppression from campaigns in support of social justice causes is to sever the essential source of political motivation from the social actor. Individuals engaged in the process of their own liberation do not burn out and do not need workshops about the meaning of solidarity.

First World organizers, coalition builders, and educators, have transformed themselves into victims managing burnout, managers of slaves, and experts in putting the cart before the horse – in the hope that the horse will not be seen or needed. If we don’t have authentic rebels throwing punches then there is no movement. If we don’t understand Paulo Freire’s mantra that “you can only fight your own oppression,” then we are enablers of the power structure.

Friday, October 9, 2009

Students are the raw material. The products are obedient employees, indoctrinated managers, and service intellectuals. Mario Savio explains it in this video. The machine has only been perfected since that time and there are fewer Marios.

Student Mario Savio proposes this solution:

And we have no idea what he means, no idea what he is talking about, because we have no reference point, because we have been schooled too perfectly.

Saturday, October 3, 2009

In this essay, I put forth that the PowerPoint(TM) presentation is a vehicle for fascism and that professors have pissed away their sacred duty to protect the classroom space from corporate rule; that the only way to fight indoctrination is to replace it with vibrant bursts of self-discovery that emanate from the rebellious self in conflict with the forces of oppression that assault the classroom.

In Canada the professor is the legal occupier of the university classroom during scheduled class times. This means that the professor effectively owns the space. University administrators cannot simply barge in, nor can the police come in without a warrant.

The professor can decide to have guests and can deny the entry of any person who is not a registered student.

In addition, professors have professional independence, known as academic freedom. They are bound only by their professional better judgement, all the usual laws forbidding criminal behaviour, accepted societal norms of ethical conduct, and any rules or policies that have been established by the collegial governance process for universities.

Only rules, guidelines or policies which have been adopted by the relevant collegial governance process have standing in the classroom. Rules unilaterally adopted by the administration cannot be used to limit an individual professor’s academic freedom.

National and international policy statements on academic freedom and legal precedent are unambiguous on the above points: Universities have institutional independence only to enable them to protect the individual academic freedoms of their professors and students. The university senate is the supreme authority on all academic matters originating through the collegial process. In law, university executives are managerial servants not CEO bosses.

Such is the legal status of the classroom in the Canadian university, irrespective of the corruption and hijacking that has led to the present de facto corporate-style managerial invasion that puts corporate branding and global player ass-kissing ahead of education and personal development. [See supporting links below.]

Given this legal status situation and given every professor’s first priority to provide all her students with maximized opportunity for learning, one would predict that the classroom would be a vibrant cauldron of debate, expression, creativity, challenges, questioning, influences, doubts, emotion, cooperation, competition, reflection, and synthesis.

Well no.

Like a nightmare into Orwell’s future, the classroom has become a PowerPoint presentation in which the answer to your question is three slides back – see? Monkeys with guns. Robots with clickers. Professors are too preoccupied with writing what is publishable to do anything but deliver canned trivia, too insecure to put themselves at risk, too standardized to think on the spot, too specialized to know anything useful, too afraid to allow student freedom … they spend most of their energy preserving the image they have of themselves.

The professor has the legal apparatus to create a learning zone, protected from the insanity of the curriculum as roadmap and from the deadening call of the corporate mental environment, yet he chooses to participate in the killing of his students instead. She chooses to continue her own death rather than participate in life and in the lives of her students.

After all, the students want what they have been moulded into. They pay tuition and they want what they pay for. Many believe that what happens in front of a PowerPoint presentation IS learning and they would not want that “learning” to be interrupted by a lengthy discussion.

Of course most students at least unconsciously understand that they are buying a certificate and being initiated into the priesthood. And they have been so abused and so denied intellectual engagement that this acceptance into the order is all that is left for them. There is little chance of rebellion at this stage and they, like their professors, will now defend this image of themselves. They will defend their deaths rather than face their loses.

Such is the present state of university education. The outcome is exactly what the system wants: Cardboard managers of the Lie. It pays. It kills.

The answer is in the slaves themselves, in their capacity to rebel and to take their place – one personal rebellion at a time, sometimes coalescing with others, often not, always liberating when vehement enough to not be crushed.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Activist wars about tactics – Not just a question of effectiveness..Why do activists fight? What are the circumstances of the most widespread and vicious fights between white First World activists (of all colours) who are supposedly against the same injustices and supposedly fighting the same system of exploitation?..I have seen the biggest disagreements arise regarding differences in tactics. If the activists are all fighting the same oppressor, all pushing in the same direction, then why should they have such visceral confrontations about methods?..Generally speaking, those who propose more direct and higher risk approaches are told that they “put the movement at risk,” “are counterproductive,” “will give us bad press,” “will turn sympathisers and contributors to the illusive ‘critical mass’ away,” etc. Significant energy is expended confining and normalizing those elements that would be more bold...The independent minded are told to subject themselves to the consensus decisions of majority groups, to “show solidarity,” and to “respect what others are trying to achieve.”..All of this is contrary to the anarchic spirit of exploration, vital impulse, and diversity of tactics. All of this is contrary to the millennial traditions of celebrating the bravest and supporting those who elect to push harder...I have come to believe that the majority of organized First World activists prize their security in numbers and in imposed low-risk behaviours more than they are driven to actually fight the oppressor...The radicals are seen not only as not fitting in but they also represent a critique of mainstream ineffective protest and of low-risk cooperative behaviour mainly aimed at guilt alleviation and mutual comforting. Such a critique, even if not verbalized, cannot be tolerated. This critique is deeply threatening to self-image and to the main evasion tactic of talking loudly and in large coordinated numbers to the wind...Tactics are the expression in action of the activist model. And the two main competing First World models are: (1) the dominant model that low-risk expression if it involves sufficient numbers is the best lever for “progress,” and (2) the minority model that fighting the oppressor means fighting the oppressor, inflicting disabling damage, and thereby necessarily implying a backlash or adjustment and an associated risk...So differences in tactics, along this divide, give rise to significant disagreements and often cause break ups. These differences in tactics are at the heart of self-image and worldview, of how the activist perceives her place and purpose. They are tied to the activist’s beliefs about finding meaning.....Activist wars in across-class oppression..This is all well known and has been written about often enough, but now consider a special variety of this dynamic – one that arises when middle class First World activists fight the oppressor of an underprivileged group living on the same territory (e.g. aboriginals) or in a distant land (e.g., Palestinians)...Occasionally, a member of the middle class activist community recognizes that the same oppressor acts in her immediate work or school environment, in the place where her own livelihood and liberation are at stake and decides to directly fight the oppressor (or one of its many tentacles) in her work or school environment, using necessarily high-risk tactics that involve trying to reduce the oppressor’s undemocratic and concentrated power in the work or school environment...If this driven activist on the road to liberation claims solidarity with the underprivileged group and draws attention to the across-class character of the oppression by suggesting that we need to actually fight the bastards where we are and where we have power, then that is going too far. The majority middle class weekend and after-work low-risk consensus-seeking activists who fight for the underprivileged simply flip out...Corporate media coverage of ineffective actions is allowed whereas media coverage of actions that threaten power is generally not. And media ties the activist to the broad community with its social norms and opinions, which in turn protect the individual resistor from indiscriminate and disproportionate applications of power, such that media-share, media-strategy, and media-use are often at the core of the conflict between activists. And our driven workplace activist is “subverting media away from the dying underprivileged children…”..The accusations are almost comically predictable: “You are using the underprivileged for your own selfish means, for your own promotion…” “You are privileged; you can therefore not be oppressed.” “How dare you compare their suffering to yours; these people are being killed.”..The protectors of low-risk activism call upon the obviously extreme suffering of the distant group targeted for aid via critical mass leverage, in order to argue that they need not actually fight anyone. They focus their efforts to eliminate this threat to their cultist belief in action at a distance via multiple filters as the most they can do...Their contributions may arguably be important and the nurtured consciousness of First World civil society may arguably play a role in frustrating expressions of war and genocide in non-First-World-middle-class jurisdictions, but the point here is that any suggestion that they are not doing everything they can or that they need to do more that would involve an actual fight with consequences and casualties will not be tolerated...An activist from their own privileged class that actually takes the battle personally into the halls of the economic system that sustains the oppression, and is necessarily not polite and suitably restrained in doing so, must be killed, or at least defamed, isolated, and neutralized...It’s a mobbing with the full intellectual pretext mill backing of university-bred feminist theory and progressive liberal rationalization. It’s ugly; the finest expression of fear and ignorance that mainstream First World activism can provide...Today’s North American mainstream progressive liberal low-risk consensus-seeking hobby activists are possibly the greatest barrier to First World liberation (and whole-world sanity); since the radicals that are neutralized rather than projected and multiplied are the main connections to liberation.....RELATED POSTSActivism and RiskAgainst ChomskyMeans and FreireEmbracing Hatred..RESPONSE FROM THE SOCIAL REVOLUTION PARTY:Open Letter to Denis Rancourt: Harsh Words for the Ex-Professor..OTHER RELATED EXAMPLES:Why Norman Finkelstein dropped out of the Gaza Freedom March

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Emotions are the truest metabolic expressions of how we perceive our immediate circumstances...There are no good and bad emotions since spontaneous emotion is simply what we feel in response to our perceived circumstances. Emotions are the most fundamental way, as human beings, that we can experience the outside world of relations, danger, safety, threats, solidarity…..The more a society suppresses or confines or directs emotion, the less individuals in the society have freedom of expression and self knowledge and knowledge of the world...So-called developed world societies, First World societies, are particularly messed up on the emotions front. In Canada, for example, hatred itself is illegal. What could be more pathological on the emotions front than to actually outlaw an emotion?..As another example, North American mainstream culture would have us accept that sadness is to be avoided and can be suppressed by “putting on a happy face”. With the help of scientific research, we are taught that “acting as if” can produce joy...In addition, various North American formal and informal love cults would have us “love our enemies” and “project love into the world” as the ultimate response in the face of aggression and oppression. These cult movements promote a ninja emotional response whereby one replaces an instinctive and guttural and most fundamental emotional response to oppression with its opposite, in the belief that the emotional response will change the real outside circumstances. Whereas this may be superficially true in exploring and developing individual relations within a community of battered individuals wanting mutual support, it can only be understood as disconnected and pathological when applied to real concentrated-force power-imbalance oppression bent on exploitation and domination and steeped in class divisions. Putting the positive emotional cart before the oppression horse is a sick proposal for creating justice...The First World mind-fuck regarding emotions is largely due to the institutional and corporate created mental environment that blurs the oppression, thereby making it appear normal to endure the obedience and indoctrination boot camps that are school, university, and salaried work. The emotion mind-fuck is most complete in the privileged classes which are most removed from physical pain (police brutality, environmental health risks, malnutrition, etc.) and are most indoctrinated to manage others...This mind-fuck allows First World middle classes to participate in the military economy while sleep walking through the enforced pillaging of Third and Developing World continents, as they gobble up the manufactured narratives of “aid” and “development.” At least the right, when it is honestly expressed, more consciously chooses to pillage and dominate, with its “better them than us” ethos. The latter lower middle class ethos (used by power elites) is seated in a sense of danger that is more authentic than the middle middle class distant “let’s help them” expression of outreach (used by power elites) that translates into risk-free meaningless acts of guilt alleviation...This is a call to basics...A natural emotional response is to hate one’s oppressor. Let us respect nature at this level. We need to hate our oppressors...In the face of aggression, the emotion choice is primarily binary, because the self must decide rather than simply be paralyzed: One either fears and adopts submission or one is angered, owns one’s hatred, and fights back...It is a lie to believe that hatred of one’s oppressor, unlike the oppressor’s hatred of his victims, dehumanizes or removes one’s capacity for love. In fact the opposite is true. Hatred of the oppressor and liberation from the oppression through action generates self-respect and love for all those in solidarity against oppression...I have met several ex-armed-combatants, liberation fighters, who expressed authentic love and untiring devotion for their liberated communities. Indeed, self-defence and defence of one’s community are themselves expressions of love...It is a lie that fighting back only creates more oppression, that liberation can only install new dictators. This is not liberation. Liberation is liberation, a constant life struggle of varying intensity against all assaults to enslave, exploit, and control...It is pathological to advance that one cannot use force or feel hatred in defending oneself. The latter pathology is an expression of the First World emotions mind-fuck. These ideas of pseudo-pacifism carry no credibility among resistors...Ghandi himself wrote: “we are soldiers of nonviolence, who, if the occasion demands, will lay down their lives for it. Our nonviolence is not a mere policy of the coward. […] It is a thousand times better that we die trying to acquire the strength of arm[s]. Using physical force with courage is far superior to cowardice. At least we would have attempted to act like men.” [1]....REFERENCES..[1] As quoted by Norman Finkelstein (and see his reference note (88)):http://gandhifoundation.org/2009/01/16/resolving-the-israel-palestine-conflict-what-we-can-learn-from-gandhi-by-norman-g-finkelstein/..RELATED POSTS..Activism and Risk – Life beyond altruismAnarchism as cooptationAgainst ChomskyInterpreting Means and FreireThe student as niggerSurvival 101

Cindy Milstein (co-organizer of the annual Renewing the Anarchist Tradition conference, board member with the Institute for Anarchist Studies, member of the Free Society Collective and Black Sheep Books collective; Montpelier, Vermont) gave the Wednesday unScooling Oppression conference plenary talk entitled “Education for Freedom” in Ottawa.

Milstein’s talk upset many anarchists in the audience because her described approach to social justice activism appeared to be counter to anarchism principles while claiming to be grounded in the anarchist tradition.

Milstein wholly endorsed the mainstream idea that change is to a large degree driven and informed by education, that we need to educate ourselves and interact with the community in communicating our discoveries and proposals as key effective steps in catalyzing consciousness and activism. All of Milstein’s many examples were of this type.

By contrast, anarchists, such as Erico Malatesta that Milstein cites, embody the notion that the primordial catalyst for change is the act itself of resistance and defiance against one’s oppressors, that only such acts involving significant personal risk can inform one of the true nature of the oppression, and that any education devoid of a high-risk direct action component is theorizing in a vacuum, typically a vacuum that can only be sustained in highly privileged circles.

Such educational projects, even if they apply horizontal decision making and are inclusive, gender balanced, class conscious, etc., are nonetheless privileged and sophisticated forms of sticking one’s head in the sand. Creating a near-ideal community for mutual support is not activism in itself.

It is only a way of satisfying one’s basic needs for food, water, shelter, love, and community connections, but it does not satisfy one’s need for political agency to truly control one’s life as a citizen of the World. And it does not bring one in solidarity with those at the bottom of the capitalist project.

Only fighting one’s oppressors with the intensity required to be effective will put one at significant risk and only such actions and their backlash can inform one of the true nature of the exploitative instruments of oppression that feed on us all to remove our humanity and maximize profits, interest extortion, and control.

We need to stop thinking of education as a beginning or as a necessary first step. In our society, institutional education and alternative educations that mimic institutional forms by venerating education are instruments of co-optation that neutralize activism by intellectualizing consciousness.

Praxis is action and reflection as equals. Any actor contemplating resistance and its real consequences will be motivated to learn as much as possible about the situation and to perceive reality as clearly as possible. This learning will integrate all backlashes and responses and is not afforded the luxury of intellectualization or mental experimentation into a distant future of idealized possibilities.

Privilege-preserving intellectuals should have the honesty of recognizing their stances and should not use the cover of anarchism in their quests to create nurturing community devoid of the anarchist thrust to demolish dominant hierarchical structures.

Monday, July 20, 2009

From: Denis Rancourt <>Date: Sun, Jul 19, 2009 at 6:27 PM..Subject: ReVision Quest Feedback, complaint to the CBC Ombudsman..To: CBC Ombudsman <>Cc: Chris Straw <>, liaison@radio-canada, marco.dube@cbc, angus.mckinnon@cbc, liaison@cbc..Dear Mr. Carlin,..I have attached below all the relevant exchanges in this matter...I find the answer from Mr. Straw to be a confirmation of my concerns about ReVision Quest...Therefore, I urge you to make a thorough investigation into this matter. It appears that there is a problematic (systemic?) culture within at least part of the CBC that would minimize and recast Canada's well documented and reported genocide of its aboriginal peoples...You will have no problem finding the relevant scholarship on this question. The CBC must not act as an agent of a Canada that would deny, minimize, and recast its bloody history in the treatment of aboriginal peoples. Given Canada's documented history of divide and conquer tactics against aboriginals, having co-produced the show with "normalized" (assimilated) aboriginal citizens is not a valid excuse for the continued cover up and violations...Portraying present aboriginal misery, which is the necessary fallout of cultural and physical genocide, as simply a social problem of individual choices and family psychology is an insult to humanity. ReVision Quest is an abomination...If you find yourself having difficultly seeing the racist nature of ReVision Quest, simply replace "Indian" for "Jew" or for "French Canadian" and I think you will understand what I am talking about...If you send me a transcript of the show that I heard on July 6th, I can provide a point by point analysis, if that can be of help in your work...As partial reparation I would request a CBC radio series hosted and co-interviewed by academics such as Ward Churchill, and/or activist professionals such as Kevin Annett, and/or key figures of grass roots resistance to uranium mining, treaty disrespect, and border disputes, etc.; not the white-chosen representatives, but the actual resistance that is thankfully covered by IndyMedia and abroad...Please keep me informed about the progress of your investigation...Sincerely,Dr. Denis Rancourt..PS: A starting source could be "A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and denial in the Americas 1492 to the present" by former professor Ward Churchill. Also, this award-winning Canadian video may nucleate your analysis: http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-6637396204037343133..PS2: I will take the liberty of putting various civil liberties and justice associations in cc...On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 10:05 AM, Chris Straw wrote:..Dear Dr. Rancourt..I regret to learn that you found our program ReVision Quest disrespectful and offensive. I have discussed your complaint with the senior producer of the program. The team that puts together ReVision Quest takes great care in crafting episodes that offer what they believe to be a balance of history, comedy, currency and insight into issues facing Aboriginal peoples. As you may or may not know, our production team on ReVision Quest consists primarily of programmers of First Nations decent and the majority of episodes are overseen by First Nations producers...Please be assured that we take all feedback seriously and do realize that comedy can be a treatment that not everyone will appreciate. In all cases we try to find the best treatment for the material we are examining. We may not always get it absolutely right, but we are always trying to present our ReVision Quest episodes with honesty and respect...Thank you for taking the time to share your opinion with us...It is also my responsibility to inform you that if you are not satisfied with this response, you may wish to submit the matter for review by the CBC Ombudsman. The Office of the Ombudsman, an independent and impartial body reporting directly to the President, is responsible for evaluating program compliance with the CBC's journalistic policies. The Ombudsman may be reached by mail at the address shown below, or by fax at (416) 205-2825, or by e-mail at ombudsman@cbc.ca...Regards,..Chris StrawManager,In-house Program DevelopmentCBC Radio..604 787 6519 ..---------- Forwarded message ----------From: CBC OmbudsmanDate: Mon, Jul 6, 2009 at 12:28 PMSubject: Revision Quest feedback, disgusting colonialismTo: Denis Rancourt <>Cc: Chris Straw, Jennifer Bailey..Dear Dr. Rancourt:..I write to acknowledge receipt of your e-mail. It is the customary practice of CBC’s Office of the Ombudsman to share complaints with the relevant programmers, who have the right to respond first to criticism of their work. I have therefore shared your e-mail with Chris Straw, Manager of In-House Program Development for CBC Radio. If you are not satisfied with the response you receive you may ask me to review the matter. ..Sincerely,..Vince CarlinCBC Ombudsman ..---------- Forwarded message ----------From: Denis Rancourt <>Date: Mon, Jul 6, 2009 at 10:48 AMSubject: Revision Quest feedback, disgusting colonialismTo: ombudsman@cbc, liaison@radio-canada, marco.dube@cbc, angus.mckinnon@cbc, liaison@cbcCc: revisionquest@cbc..To the CBC and those responsible for its programming:..I just listened to the latest episode of Revision Quest on CBC radio...I am disgusted by this overtly racist program...Which other peoples in Canada would have its horrendous history as victims of genocide and colonialism minimized and ridiculed overtly on national radio?..Please educate yourselves and stop being an arm of continuing disrespect and forced colonial integration...Cancel this abomination of a program immediately and replace it with the voices of resistors and grassroots opponents to puppet integration. Do Canada and human dignity a service. Call on the UN for expertize in this area if you can't find the local expert voices...Outraged,Dr. Denis G. RancourtFormer university professor and social justice activist..[Photo credits: CBC; Vince Carlin, Ombudsman; CBC logo]

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

In a previous post entitled “Against Chomsky”, I presented the thesis (developed by Foucault) that Chomsky has avoided significant risk by not taking on his own institution and that he has thereby effectively served power. >>>..As Chomsky himself puts it, virtually all intellectuals serve power, including all the left liberal types that are not conscious of their servitude: video-LINK...Chomsky reacted to my thesis, as can be seen in the July 27, 2008, comment to the above post, by offering no counter arguments or supporting examples and stated only that I offered no facts that could be checked. (Is not the record of Chomsky’s actions and writings something that can be checked?)..Below is some new data in relation to the thesis that Chomsky mostly serves power. It is an email exchange between physics student Joseph Hickey and Noam Chomsky. In this exchange, Chomsky contrasts my approach of “academic squatting” with how he viewed his own activism course at MIT...Chomsky states “But I did it on my own time, as it should be done. It would simply be kicking my colleagues in the face to insist on doing it within their department.” This position is aligned with that of Stanley Fish whose recent book against academic freedom is entitled “Save the World on Your Own Time.”..On one hand Chomsky advances that economic resources and therefore institutions should be democratically controlled (e.g., in Understanding Power), but on the other hand Chomsky confuses academic normalcy and professional elitism with the collegial governance myth of that most hierarchical of corporations – the university...The university executive has complete legal authority on all maters. All committees and councils are purely consultative. Aided by the training that is the tenure track; ass kissing rules. There are no shareholders to contend with and government oversight is mitigated by corporate independence masquerading as “academic freedom.”..Getting along with one’s colleagues, in a closed society where virtually no one uses one’s tenure, is what Chomsky advocates. How will the university become more democratic if it is not challenged at its economic heart – in the allocation of resources? How will the university serve people if it is not democratic?..Chomsky sees the dissident only in terms of the dissident’s ideas and writes: “Still, in the universities or in any other institution, you can often find some dissidents hanging around in the woodwork—and they can survive in one fashion or another, particularly if they get community support. But if they become too disruptive or too obstreperous—or you know, too effective—they're likely to be kicked out. The standard thing, though, is that they won't make it within the institutions in the first place, particularly if they were that way when they were young—they'll simply be weeded out somewhere along the line. So in most cases, the people who make it through the institutions and are able to remain in them have already internalized the right kinds of beliefs: it's not a problem for them to be obedient, they already are obedient, that's how they got there. And that's pretty much how the ideological control system perpetuates itself in the schools—that's the basic story of how it operates, I think.” LINK..Obedient radical professors serve power by making everything about ideas – nothing is occupation or defiance of the physical time-and-space (and grades-and-credits) curriculum. The student is exposed to radical analysis while being constrained in time and place; and the constraints extend into the future via monetary debt and ideological investment and isolation...Chomsky has the most power where he has the strongest tie with the economy, at MIT, in his position as Institute Professor. If you’re not resisting, chances are you’re serving power.....---------- Forwarded message ----------From: Joseph HickeyDate: Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 11:25 PMSubject: Fwd: Academic Freedom in Ottawa, Canada (letter to Chomsky)To:

Dear Prof. Chomsky,

Further to our correspondence of one month ago, Professor Rancourt has been fired by the University of Ottawa for the reason of giving high grades in one course he taught one year ago. He was fired on March 31, 2009, and now an on-line petition for his reinstatement has been created.

Rancourt has made a public statement regarding his dismissal at: http://rancourt.academicfreedom.ca/component/content/article/25.html

I'm sending you this e-mail in the hope that you will be able to add your name to this protest.

Sincerely,Joseph Hickey

p.s: official University of Ottawa statements:

firing: http://www.media.uottawa.ca/mediaroom/news-details_1654.htmlsuspension: http://www.media.uottawa.ca/mediaroom/news-details_1610.html......On Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 11:16 PM, Noam Chomsky wrote: .. I've read the written material you sent. I don't have time to watch videos, I'm afraid. ..As far as I understand, Rancourt was suspended because of his grading decisions. If that is correct, then I would sign a statement protesting that. ..Much of the rest frankly seems to me childish posturing. For example, I taught courses for 25 years at MIT on activism, much of the course devoted to bringing in activists from the community to describe what they were doing. But I did it on my own time, as it should be done. It would simply be kicking my colleagues in the face to insist on doing it within their department. From what I've seen here, his "activism" is confined to the university. I'm afraid that doesn't impress me. Not only my own, but that of academic friends and colleagues, goes far beyond that, in character, risk, international scope, etc. ..As for Fish, I'm afraid that's not a recommendation. ..Noam Chomsky ......----- Original Message -----From: Joseph HickeyTo: Noam ChomskySent: Monday, March 09, 2009 10:55 PMSubject: Re: Academic Freedom in Ottawa, Canada..Hi again Prof. Chomsky,

Thanks for getting back to me. Let me make one more bid for your attention.

1) Not many dissident tenured profs get fired for political reasons in North America. A strong supporter of Rancourt's case, who knows the background well, is your former MIT colleague David F. Noble. Here's a video of him and Rancourt giving a talk together at UofT in January, following Rancourt's suspension:http://vimeo.com/3060115

Physicist and author of "Disciplined Minds", Jeff Schmidt, who I believe you supported, is also a strong supporter of Rancourt. His letter is not yet up on academicfreedom.ca, unfortunately, but I could send it to you.

Thanks for your time,Sincerely,Joseph Hickey......On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 2:50 PM, Noam Chomsky wrote: .. It looks from your letter as though protest is in order, but to proceed I'd have to work through the background, and I'm afraid I'm just not in a position to do that. I'm deluged with similar requests. Each requires inquiry. Sometimes I've been able to work it into a very demanding schedule, but usually not, I'm afraid. I don't like to take a public stand on factual matters without serious investigation. And this case I never even heard of before you wrote. .. Noam Chomsky ......----- Original Message ----- From: Joseph Hickey (by way of Noam Chomsky )To: Noam ChomskySent: Monday, March 02, 2009 5:12 PMSubject: Academic Freedom in Ottawa, Canada

Hi Professor Chomsky,

I'd like to let you know about a (in my opinion) riveting academic freedom struggle that's currently underway at the University of Ottawa. Tenured physics professor Denis Rancourt has worked at the university for 22 years, and is now about to be dismissed because of the way he graded a fourth-year quantum mechanics course that he taught one year ago. In the course, he gave all students the mark of A+ (highest possible mark) on the first day of class, so as to remove grades from the students' learning experience in that class. On Dec. 10, 2008, Rancourt was placed on academic suspension, and barred from coming onto campus. In January, he was arrested when he came to campus to host a weekly film night that he's been hosting for the past 3 years or so.

Of course there's a lot more to the story.. Rancourt runs a blog that is very critical of the UofO: www.uofowatch.blogspot.com and that has, among other things, exposed falsification of documents by the upper administration of the university.

Rancourt also voices his pro-Palestine anti-Israel views, and believes that new President Allan Rock (former Liberal star-politician and cabinet minister under Jean Chretien, ambassador to the U.N. under Paul Martin) has connections to the Israel lobby, and that this is one of the reasons he is being dismissed.

I am one of Rancourt's physics graduate students. Upon Rancourt's suspension, all of his graduate students were told that they must find new supervisors. Two other students and I have pursued legal action against the university and the Dean of Science and the Dean of Graduate Studies over breach of contract and misfeasance in public office: http://www.vimeo.com/3372672 in this video, President Allan Rock evades justice for approx. 10 minutes as we follow him down Laurier street, attempting to serve him, as chief representative of the university, with our legal claim.

Thank you for reading this,I hope you are well,and I'd like to say thanks for all the precious reading material you've put out into this twisted world of ours!

Saturday, May 23, 2009

In the previous POST I quoted American Indian activist Russell Means on the questions of freedom, self, and revolution:.."We have self-administration, not self-determination. … In my childhood ... I learned how to be free - you were free to be responsible. … I am a revolutionary. I believe in one revolution - returning back to who you are. One revolution."..Revolution is the struggle for liberation from oppression. My understanding of Means’ words is that revolution is rooted in the individual’s fight against her own oppression, a fight that gives the individual her place of influence in the world, the place she is meant to have as a living person...This revolution is a journey of liberation from the effects of oppression on the individual, from the individual’s acceptance of imposed hierarchy, from the oppressor inside that enables the oppression...This revolution is not an escape from or an accommodation to the oppressive power structure but a true liberation of self that must involve asserting self and confronting the oppressor, in order to make one’s place in the expanse stolen by the oppressor...The confrontation against the system of oppression and against the oppressors as persons has consequences: It is a fight. It is a fight for liberation not a fight to oppress. As a “revolution,” the fight transforms the fighter, accompanies discovery of self, and reveals the world. It does not internalize a new oppressor...The fight brings forth those who fight the same oppressor. They fight side by side in co-self-discovery and in shared risks and consequences. This is the meaning of solidarity. It is possible across classes, genders, and races if members from the different groups fight with comparable risks and consequences...I interpret Russel Means to be in intimate agreement with Paulo Freire and with the individualist anarchists. This is what Freire means by “authentic rebellion” in the developing person. I believe that, in hierarchical societies or communities, true self-discovery and meaning are not possible without authentic rebellion.....RELEVANT WORKS

Thursday, May 21, 2009

"We have self-administration, not self-determination.".."In my childhood ... I learned how to be free - you were free to be responsible.".."I am a revolutionary. I believe in one revolution - returning back to who you are. One revolution."

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

December 12, 1959*..Commissioner of EducationAlbany..Dear Dr. Allen,..I understand that the case of James Worley of Croton Falls has come to you for review. Allow me to say something in his behalf...In content, his original protesting action (refusing to prepare a two-week lesson plan) seems to me beyond doubt correct. I myself have taught every age from ten-year-olds through Ph.D. candidates and other adults; it has been my universal experience that formal preparation of a lesson plan beyond the next hour or two is not only unrealistic but can be positively harmful and rigidifying, for it interferes with the main thing, the contact between the teacher and his class. Worley’s disagreement with the administrative order is, to me, simply evidence that he is a good teacher and knows what the right teaching relation is. A teacher who would seriously comply with the order would likely be a poor teacher. (Our model must always be the Socratic dialogue, for the aim is not to covey some information but to get the information across as part of the student’s nature and second nature, so he can make an individual and creative use of it.) On the other hand, if the compliance is not serious it is a waste of time; and, as you know well, teachers are burdened with paper work, much of which is absolutely necessary...In form, his protest was certainly insubordinate. But obviously each of us has the moral and social duty to draw the line somewhere against obedience to error. Worley has drawn it at a very crucial point, namely, where the order interferes with the right performance of the job. In the end this is the sacred and final obligation of every professional, to do the work and to defend the conditions under which the work can be done well...The issue is of immense importance. Our country is being systematically emasculated by a sickening waste of human resources. The efforts of a Dr. Conant to salvage some scientific talent are ludicrously inadequate by our social relations that keep the inventor from his materials, the workman from honest labor, the teacher from his students and subject matter, and the artist from his public. We cannot afford to throw away good teachers to save face for mistaken administrators. It is the glory of good administration precisely to smooth the path for objective work to proceed. Therefore I urge you to intervene in this case and reinstate Mr. Worley...Copy to Gov. Rockefeller..Sincerely,..Paul GoodmanNew York City..(PG notes: The appeal of Mr. Worley was rejected by the Commissioner who said that, though he was much in the right, he ought to have acted through the proper channels.)..*From Appendix A in the 1960 edition of Growing Up Absurd by Paul Goodman.